


Right Down the Line, It's Been You and Me

by moprocrastinates



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Merry Crisis!!!, RCSS, Rebelcaptain Secret Santa, i think we all celebrated Merry Crisis in 2020, so much so that this is almost late but I MADE IT, what a year y'all!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 09:01:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28542966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moprocrastinates/pseuds/moprocrastinates
Summary: Hoth was enough to make all good feelings vanish, and even the most patient of soldiers collapse into fits of rage or despair.Which was why, in Jyn's very good, very accurate, and very truthful opinion, Hoth was the primary reason for her and Cassian's...  break-up.Break-up was too specific a word, though. It implied a relationship, something sure and defined, and she wasn’t sure what exactly they had been.|| A RebelCaptain Secret Santa gift for the ever-so-lovely @SadieAndor! Prompt: Reunion ||
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Jyn Erso, Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus, Chirrut/Baze are only hinted at
Comments: 7
Kudos: 61





	Right Down the Line, It's Been You and Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SadieAndor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SadieAndor/gifts).



> Happy RebelCaptain Secret Santa time, @SadieAndor! I hope you enjoyed your gift as much as I did writing it. 
> 
> I'm still trying to get back into the groove of writing, so please excuse egregious errors.

Hoth clings to all rebels like a second skin. 

Despite having left the base mere months ago, and despite the loss of Solo, and Skywalker, who returned to the Dagobah to finish his Jedi training, the rebels complained more than ever. 

Some days, it was the lack of good food-- protein packs and grain bars could only last so long before it turned to ash in one's mouth. Others, it was the lack of heat, the newest of rebels buried under the thinnest of clothes so often passed as blankets. Warm water, or, again, the lack thereof, was perhaps the most common complaint, although Jyn herself couldn't quite find the words to gripe about that. 

She'd had worse, after all. 

No, for her, and certainly for many of the others, the worst part of the lingering memory of Hoth was the sheer loneliness. Hoth was always a desolate planet, vengeful in its coldest moments and bitter in its kindest. It brought with it a kind of isolation everyone felt, regardless of however many were at your side.

Hoth was enough to make all good feelings vanish, and even the most patient of soldiers collapse into fits of rage or despair. 

Which was why, in Jyn's very good, very accurate, and very truthful opinion, Hoth was the primary reason for her and Cassian's... break-up. 

Break-up was too specific a word, though. It implied a relationship, something sure and defined, and she wasn’t sure what exactly they had been. 

The sex was _good_ , and Cassian was beyond _good_ too, in more ways than one. He was her best friend, her closest confidante, and someone who she knew always had her back. Sometimes, though, she found herself wanting to cuddle into him more, kiss his lips a bit more tenderly and for longer, and press herself so close until there was only skin on skin. 

But Cassian, the ever-loyal soldier ( _until you_ , her brain helpfully reminds her), got up every morning, slipped on his clothes and jacket, and went off to listen to whatever brief Draven had for him that day, and in the early days of their arrangement, he would come and join them all for breakfast. He actually spent time with them all, joking with Bodhi to loosen the cobwebs in his eyes, helping Chirrut train the younglings, and sitting with Baze in silence as they cleaned their weapons. 

Somehow, he was always beside her, shoulder brushing hers as they walked side by side in the hallway. He pulled her away when young Rebels, green of war, called her and Bodhi derogatory Imperial names, and refused to leave her side when she was even slightly wounded. His smile soothed her, little as it was for a spy of his caliber, the sight of his blue parka and warm brown eyes more than welcoming. Her heart seemed to sigh every time he walked back into her line of vision, like coming home.

Maybe ‘best friend’ was too small a word.

But their breakup was something else entirely.

He’d just… disappeared.

Chirrut seemed relatively unperturbed by the recent development, and when Chirrut was unphased, so was Baze. And if Baze wasn't ruffled, then Kay saw no reason for concern. When Kay wasn't flustered, statistically-minded as he was, Bodhi wasn't worried. 

But Jyn was worried. He usually spoke to her, even after arguments, and, well, while their breakup wasn’t necessarily an argument so much as a complete shut-out, she had thought he would’ve cared enough to at least give her a few words regarding his future whereabouts. After Cassian’s reaction, though, well— she wouldn’t be surprised if she had lost him. Permanently.

It happened like this: 

Two days ago, Jyn had found Cassian in the weapons storeroom, cleaning a rifle with the kind of intense precision he applied to damn near everything.

"Hey," She said, smiling at him -- a half-smile, a simple lift of the lips -- before digging into her waistband and pulling out the blaster she'd stolen months before, back when she had first met him. It was a little dirty, slightly dented from a mission on Tanaab that went awry, and the trigger was a tad sticky, but it was still Cassian’s blaster, and it belonged to him.

(Lots of things now belonged to him. She is going to continue to ignore this.)

Cassian's eyes widened, but he didn't move his eyes from the blaster she held out to him. His face was slack, jaw loose. “What are you doing?" He asked.

Jyn shrugged. "It's yours, after all. I'm just giving it back." 

"No, it's not.” He turned away and smoothed an oiled rag down the barrel of the rifle. “You took it from me. While I might've protested at first, it's yours now."

She huffed. "It's yours, Cassian. Not mine. I figured you might want it back, considering that I'm now part of the Rebellion and can get my own blaster." With a quick flick of her finger, she pointed to the room around them. "I've got plenty of options, see?” 

She knew she wasn’t wrong. Around them, blasters of every size and shape covered every square corner of the wall. Cassian’s blaster might’ve been her preferred weapon, but it was actually his. And on that last mission to Tanaab, the one that ended up denting said blaster, Jyn had watched as Cassian had had a barrel to his temple, fucked over by a panicked informant. 

If she hadn’t had the blaster on her own person, Cassian could’ve whipped it out and gotten away. 

Instead, he had thrown his head back to smash the informant’s nose, and the blaster went off, and for a moment, Jyn thought her heart stopped beating because Cassian wasn’t _moving_ —

In the end, it hadn’t hit him; rather, the informant accidentally killed themselves.

But Cassian moaned, his temple bleeding. From what, she couldn't tell, but the situation had whet her fear into something so tangible she wasn't quite sure she would be able to hear a blaster go off again.

For a week, he was holed up in the medbay with a severe concussion and a badly bruised neck, his throat a mottled brown and purple, and Jyn would’ve done anything to keep that from happening. 

Her nightmares after that mission were back in full force: he died in her arms on Scarif and she lived only to be alone, he died in her arms on Scarif and then the light took her and she died alone, he fell and never came back for her, the man in white dodging his blast and firing back, and— they went on and on, and each night, she woke up alone, soaked in sweat and afraid to ever get close to anyone ever again. 

( _It’s too late_ , her heart reminded her. _We belong to others now_.)

So she decided to give the blaster back. 

Jyn was expecting Cassian to take the blaster without argument, but instead, he just stared. "You do," he murmured, and when he lifted his eyes to hers, something eddied there, pooled deep behind whatever he had yet to take down in front of her. “But you no longer want this?"

She frowned. "Yeah, but-- this is yours. I mean, it was yours originally, but then I took it, and I’m giving it back now."

That emotion, the thing swirling in his eyes, burst through that unknown veil. “I don’t want it back.”

What? “Why not?”

“It’s yours now, Jyn!”

"I'm literally trying to give this back to you, Cassian." 

"Well, I don't want it back." 

"I can pick any one of these; it won't be a problem!" Besides, she thought, I owe you for... everything. This is the least I can do.

"Fine, Jyn." He snapped, and thrust his hand out. When she froze, he snarled, "Hand it over now, if you no longer want it." 

Slowly, she held the blaster out, and he snatched it like it was a bomb about to explode. He stood up, jerky, and headed for the door. 

“Do you have any recommendations—“ She started, but Cassian merely waved a hand at her and yanked open the door. 

“Goodbye, Jyn.” He said. With that, he disappeared, and when she stepped out of the weapon room herself, his figure was growing smaller and smaller in the distance, a ship blasting off and headed into the atmosphere.

There was a phantom quality in the space beside her, as if someone belonged there but no longer was.

When she went to find him later, barely four hours later, his room was barren. Stripped of anything that might've once been his, the new sheets were pristine, a towel ragged and discolored folded neatly on the cot, and there wasn't a speck of dust to be found. Someone, a droid perhaps, had already been through and sanitized the whole pace, the smell of chemicals making her head swim. 

He’d left her without a word. 

_Left her_. 

And he never had before.

Was this— permanent? 

"He had a mission," Bodhi says now, chomping down on their cold dinner of some barely palatable bread and the worst looking meat kebabs she'd ever seen. She had run to him, panicked, only to find him in the mess. “He told Chirrut, who told Baze, who told me. I figured he would've told you." 

She ducks her head. _Kark_. "We aren't speaking." 

"Oh." Bodhi swallows. His eyes dip low to glance at his food and he scowls a little. "I'm sorry, Jyn." 

“It’s not your fault, Bodes.” Her tongue flicks out to wet her lips, and her fingers begin twiddling with the fraying strands of her gloves, shoddy as they are. "And the worst part is I don't know what I did." 

"What do you mean?" 

"I tried to give him his blaster back.” Jyn mumbles, feeling a spike of something stupid and awful grow in the pit of her stomach, and Bodhi’s eyes grow huge. "You know the one I took before we met you all on Jedha? Yeah, that one. I was trying to be nice, because that last mission went so terribly wrong, and I thought that if he had another blaster, you know, something hidden, he could’ve gotten out of it. But when I gave it to him… Suddenly, he was spitting venom at me, asking if I really wanted to have options, if I really wanted to find another blaster that work as well as his did." Jyn couldn't help the moisture developing in the corners of her eyes as it slowly dripped from the corner to the table. "We were so good, Bodhi, and I finally felt like we could both talk. I could tell him anything, and he me. I just don’t know what happened."

"The Captain's caught feelings, Jyn." Chirrut says, sitting down next to Bodhi with a quiet thump. Jyn jolts without really thinking— _what an easy scare you are_ , Saw’s voice whispers in her mind, _you’ll never make it far if you don’t stay on edge_ — Chirrut was always around when you least expected him to be. He has a tray in his hands, full of some hot soup, but there is no mistaking that most of the steam is coming out of Jyn’s ears. "If you can't see that, I am not the only blind one in the room." 

"But it was just sex!" Jyn protests. Really, it was. There was nothing more to her and Cassian besides, well, whatever they were, partners or friends or what-have-you. "We have sex, and sleep together, and have each other's backs, and talk about our pasts, and I clean his blaster and we pull each other out of tight places and—

“That doesn’t sound like just sex,” Bodhi points out. He is always right in a way that Jyn finds herself hating, just a little. “That sounds like something far more than that.”

“it sounds like a partnership, but more than that, too,” Chirrut says. His tone is soft but firm. It is easy to see how he and Base fell together— it is a balance they have; where one missed, the other never did. They ware the sun and the Earth, reactionary to each other. “It sounds like friendship, trust, and lo-"

She and Cassian never were balanced in that way. They were more like the moon and the stars, working in tandem to bring change time after time. Unstoppable, never without the other.

“It sounds like love.” Jyn finished softly.

Both Bodhi and Chirrut nod. 

Oh. 

_Oh_. 

_**OH**_.

——

Cassian’s return is unannounced. 

It makes her bitter, in a way. Wouldn’t anyone have thought to mention this to her? After all, they were Rogue One, forever associated together. Their names might be individual, but you cannot have one without the other. 

She tries to find him, corner him, ask him why he’d left without a word. _Why did you abandon me?_ tingles on the tip of her tongue, but he remains unable to be found. His room is clear, but his go-bag is lopsided on the bed, haphazardly thrown there like he was in a hurry to get somewhere else, maybe somewhere where her scent didn’t linger and memories of their time together didn’t flare up.

Somehow, he must have caught up with their friends, because when she finds them, the rest of Rogue One keep their lips shut. Chirrut merely tells her that she’ll find Cassian if she looks within. Whatever the kark that means, she’s going to ignore it and just throttle him the next time she sees him. 

Kay tells her that Cassian was extremely upset during the duration of their mission, but that he was in fine physical condition. “Only,” the droid says, cocking his head and shifting his lenses to look at her. If he were sentient, he would have the scariest glare, she thinks. “I’m not sure one of his vital organs is the same way.”

Rude.

So, naturally, it’s when she stomps onto her favorite Y-wing, the one she and Cassian flew together in on their way to Jedha, that she finds him sulking in the cockpit. 

“Cassian.” Whoops. Her voice sounds awful, like she inhaled jet fumes before coming here to talk to him. “What are you doing—“

He stands up the second she starts speaking. “Sergeant Erso, I’ll be on my way.” 

_Sergeant._ Not Jyn? That hurt. “Cassian, I’m sorry—“

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s obviously not nothing if my mere presence is enough to make the great Captain Andor flee the room.” Jyn doesn’t mean to sneer, but the threat of him leaving brings out an ache from a place so deep that it feels bottomless. “Do you do this on all your spy missions?”

His eyes flick up to hers, and they burn right through her. Cassian remains ramrod straight, but now his brows are furrowed, and finally, _finally_ , his focus is on her. “Only on the ones where any value is already lost.” 

She swallows. That was fair. It had been an awfully low blow. He had a right to swing back. “Look, I just want to go back to the way things were, okay? I don’t know what exactly it was I did, but if it means that much to you, I’ll keep the stupid blaster.”

At the mention of the blaster, Jyn sees that emotion, unrecognizable in that fleeting moment, pass through his eyes. “Not if you don’t want it.” 

“I do want it, Cass, but—“

“But why?” His voice has taken on an entirely new quality. Desperation, she might say, or, even, heartbreak. “Why give it back?”

“Because I nearly lost you.” The words leak out of her, stolen, taken in the night. Gods, she wishes she could swallow them whole.

But no more. _In the name of love_. Instead, she sighs quietly and hangs her head. “If you had had the blaster on you, you wouldn’t’ve gotten hurt.” She wants to lift her eyes from the ground and meet his gaze, but the distance is too great, her eyes suddenly too heavy. “I couldn’t reach you fast enough, but I figured if you got him to let go, you could have grabbed the blaster and killed him without endangering yourself.” Everything feels foggy and sticky, like sludging through a swamp. "I can’t— I can’t lose you, Cassian, and then you left without telling me, and I really don’t know what I did, but—“

“I need you to keep the blaster, Jyn.” He says, and his eyes, dark and sweet and everything she’s ever wanted, search over hers like they want to know every thought, every feeling. His voice trembles, a quality she recognizes in her own. 

Perhaps his feelings are spilling out of him like water, too. Perhaps he can't hold them in any more, either. 

When she finally lets herself look up at his face, that nameless emotion has broken wide all over it. “Because it’s not just a blaster. Not anymore. Because it was mine, and it now belongs to you. I never want it back again.”

Oh. OH. OH.

“Oh,” Jyn says aloud, a little dumbly. 

Cassian’s lips twitch, like he’s really trying not to smile. 

“I didn’t know it wasn’t just a blaster, you see.” She tries, but he just shakes his head.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t just a blaster. That’s on me.” 

“Maybe it’s on both of you!” Chirrut’s voice comes from just outside the entrance, immediately followed by squawks, a flurry of thumps and angry mumbles, surely Baze’s. 

"Maybe you both need to communicate better!" Bodhi chimes in. 

"Maybe we should shut up," Baze grumbles.

"I concur," Kay says.

Then, there's another squawk, followed by more thuds, and while Jyn doesn't know who started what, she doesn't really care.

“Maybe,” she agrees, her eyes meeting his, and Cassian’s smile grows. 

“Maybe,” he relents, and steps forward. 

It is almost natural, then, for her to lift up on her toes and touch her lips to his. Cassian sighs, a soft thing, and steps more surely towards her, his hand spanning the small of her back as he pulls her closer. 

“I’m not going to give it back again.” Jyn murmurs, a hair’s breath from his lips, and presses in closer. 

“You won’t need to,” he says in reply.

It’s all she can really ask for.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always appreciated!
> 
> come find me on [tumblr](https://moprocrastinates.tumblr.com)!


End file.
